"THIS TIME AROUND"
By: gb
~Chapter 1~
Ryan stood anxiously in the living room of Myrtle’s boardinghouse waiting for Gillian to make her appearance. Experience had taught him that his royal ex-wife would not come downstairs until she was just plain ready.
As he waited, his mind wandered over the last several weeks. He had been trying his level best to get Gillian back in his life- what a fool he’d been to think he could ever go through it without her. Every day without Gilli had been an exercise in misery and every night had been like living on the other side of hell!
Here he had told her that they were through- that he had no love to give her or anyone else and then was helplessly suffering in silence as he watched her and Jake Martin at SOS having a high old time while he seethed like a volcano at the thought of someone else with his wife.
Gillian would always be his wife- in his heart which is where she lived. No divorce could change that. And one day, he had woken up and stared at a photograph of the two of them and knew the truth from which he had been running since he had first met her that she was his lifeline and without her, he would drown, dying a little at a time until there was nothing left but a lifeless body with no spirit to continue.
In her, he had found his soul the one he had been looking for his whole life. She had been the anchor he had clung to and was the salve to his battered heart as the storms had raged within him and he had battled to kill his demons once and for all. His lonely childhood with its pains and fears somehow could no longer hurt him because Gillian had come and stayed and been there to slay all the monsters and love all his wounds away until he could no longer go through a night without her to sleep in his arms.
Together, they had built them; their castles in the air way up in the clouds and then single-handedly he had torn them down and sent her away thinking it to be for her own good.
Her eyes had cried real tears and her heart had sobbed aloud and had begged him to let her stay and his soul had known no peace from that moment. Her cries had haunted his dreams and there had been too any nights where he had reached out for her only to find a cold, empty space against the skin of his hand to greet him. He had cried in life, but never had it been with more anguish than when he had felt that bare space beside him on that bed.
This is how Myrtle had found him on that fall day and had told him to go and get his wife back.
“You’ll never be happy until you do,” she informed him. “But, you’ll have to fight for her.”
Ryan knew that she had meant that Jake was an important man to her now.
“Gillian doesn’t believe you want her. And let’s face it- you’ve never actually fought for her.” Said Myrtle. “You’ve never had to-she’s done all the work for you. Everyone wants to believe that they’re worth something-that they have value for someone else. She sees you fighting for Hayley all the time. She thinks she’s second choice- that she’s yesterday’s leftovers. You show her that she comes first and you’ll win her trust and get to keep her heart.”
Ryan’s smooth- talking con man spirit had not fully deserted him and he had used it to try and charm Gillian at first, but she was buying none of it. So then, Ryan had had to start playing hardball.
He smiled to himself as he recalled all the times he’d “unexpectedly” shown up on Gillian’s dates with Jake. Inviting himself to their table, cutting in on their dances, sending over bottles of champagne he really couldn’t afford- even showing up at her door at the boardinghouse and making a pest of himself by giving little unwanted comments on Jake saying he was “just not the right guy” for Gillian.
Then there had been the time he had gotten her to meet him at SOS on some pretense about their divorce papers and once she had gotten there, had led her to the storeroom in the back and had gotten them locked in there for an entire afternoon. She had screamed and had thrown the contents of half a wall shelf at him, going on and on about how she was going to miss her hair appointment at the Glamourama and be late for a dinner with Jake.
Ryan had hardly been sorry he’d ruined her evening with Jake (and there had been no end to his delight at how irritated Jake had been when he and Mateo and Hayley had found them later that day).
Gillian, however, had left that scene as usual in near tears swearing Lord knew what in Hungarian at him. A dozen roses had failed to change her temperament and she had flung those at him, too!
Then one day, Ryan had come clean and stood before her, humbled by her stunning face that never failed to take his breath away and with his heart in his eyes, quietly asked her, “If you don’t have any plans and you don’t think you’ll get bored with me, and I ask really nicely, would you maybe like to walk with me in the park?”
The dam had broken. A tear had come slowly down her cheek as she had looked up at what she liked to call his “sweet, innocent face” and had agreed to come along.
“I couldn’t promise anything,” Gillian had quietly said, “But I’d like to just be with you today.”
“But you want to,” he had replied. “that’s the important part…”
And so, here he was waiting for her and he felt just like a schoolboy on his first date. This made sense to him somehow- after all, she was his first love.
Hearing footsteps on the stairs, he looked up and his breath caught in his throat as the Princess Andrassy made her way down the steps…
End of part 1
To be continued….